The present invention generally relates to the field of organizing and inter-relating data files. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and associated method for a dynamic folder hierarchy such that documents, items, or object groups stored without external organization provided by a static folder hierarchy can be viewed by the user in a dynamic folder hierarchy that adapts to modifications of the documents, items, or object groups without manual intervention.
As used herein, the term “folder” refers for example to a named collection of related items that can be retrieved, moved, and otherwise manipulated as one entity. “Foldering” or “linking” is a process where a content management system manages or controls the creation, retrieval, editing and distribution of content within an information processing system. Foldering or linking is the act of forming a “link” relationship between two Items. Generally, the content management system enables an end user to create a folder in the content management system and file it into a library by interacting with a suitable application.
Foldering is a generic concept of grouping documents or entities. A folder hierarchy can be used as a classification method to categorize documents, helping to narrow a search space for documents and providing a natural method of navigating documents. Examples of providing the folder hierarchy can be found in file systems such as, for example, the NTFS on Windows platforms, or in an email repository such as, for example, Lotus Notes®.
Conventional foldering mechanisms require a user to manually maintain the placement of documents in a folder within a folder hierarchy. When the content of a document is changed, users have to determine a location for the document within the folder hierarchy that matches the new content of the document. The possibility of misplacing documents in a folder hierarchy is relatively high. Once the document is misplaced, it can be difficult to locate.
Auto foldering systems address the issues of manual foldering. Conventional auto foldering systems automatically place the documents in folders using a predefined criterion based on the properties or content of the document. OLE_LINK2 Although this technology has proven to be useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements.OLE_LINK2 Using an auto foldering system allows association of a document with many folders. If changes in the content of such a document occur frequently, the processing overhead involved in reevaluating the foldering criteria and placing the document in appropriate folders is high.
Conventional dynamic foldering systems address the issues of manual foldering while reducing processing overhead of auto foldering systems. Instead of requiring static placement of a document in one or more specific folders, a criterion (or criteria) is defined for each design-time folder to describe which documents are associated with the folder. When during run-time a corresponding dynamic folder is accessed via query or path navigation, a collection of documents is evaluated against the defined criteria. Those documents in the collection of documents that satisfy the criteria of the dynamic folder appear as members of the folder.
One conventional dynamic folder system provides a mechanism to populate “smart” folders with documents retrieved from a search executed upon a “folder open” command [reference is made to “Smart Folders in Greenpasture”, G5 Desktop Technical Note, http://www.greenpasture.com/teknotes/teknote_g5_desk top—03.pdf]. The smart folders contain pointers to documents returned from a saved search. To create a smart folder, a user first defines and saves a search. The user then creates a smart folder and associates the saved search with the smart folder. The system runs a search each time the user opens the smart folder and fills the folder with documents returned from the search. The result of the smart folder is the result of joining the nested queries of the nested folders [reference is made to http://www.greenpasture.com/demos.html]. One document can reside in any number of smart folders. The user may configure smart folders to search the entire library or base a search upon the position of the smart folder in the folder hierarchy. In the latter case, a smart folder returns only documents that are stored in folders at or below its own level in the hierarchy.
Another dynamic foldering system provides three ways of defining a folder using metadata: explicit folder creation, template-based folder creation, and rule-based folder creation [reference is made to J. Eder, et. al., “Self-maintained Folder Hierarchies as Document Repositories”. Int'l Conference on Digital Libraries: Research and Practice, Kyoto, Japan, November 2000]. In this dynamic foldering system, metadata is in the form of the attribute name-value pair. Examples of definition of explicit folder creation are:
create folder research under / with org=lab
create folder 2000 under /*/new with year=2000.
Examples of definition of template-based folder creation are:
create folder under /research by dept named D−$val
create folder under /research by dept/year.
Examples of rule-based folder creation are:
rule r1: create folder old under /* with year <1998
rule r2: create permanent folder public under /research/*/year:* with clearance <secret and year > 1999.
This dynamic foldering system allows distinct values of an attribute to be the classification criteria for assigning a document to a folder as in template-based folder creation. Consequently, the folder hierarchy of this dynamic foldering system is driven by the content of the documents.
Yet another conventional dynamic foldering system utilizes a query language to retrieve some of the information from XML documents [reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,946]. This conventional dynamic foldering system uses the retrieved information to automatically organize a hierarchy in which to organize the XML documents.
Although these conventional dynamic foldering technologies have proven to be useful, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. The conventional folder definitions mostly address only the domain of the flat data model. Many of the conventional dynamic foldering technologies assume the metadata appears in the form of a name—value attribute pair. Conventional dynamic foldering technologies do not provide a complete solution to cover the hierarchical data model, such as XML, where the criteria of a folder may depend on the context of the criteria of the ancestor folders. Further, the foldering criteria associated with a conventional dynamic folder are static, requiring determination when the folder is created. There is no mechanism in conventional foldering technologies to tailor the foldering criteria at the time a user accesses the dynamic folder. For example, users may want to define a criterion of the folder to be based on the current month.
What is therefore needed is a system, a service, a computer program product, and an associated method for creating dynamic folder hierarchies utilizing a context of a criteria of ancestor folders and dynamic foldering criteria. Further, a dynamic foldering technique is desired that allows a user to define foldering criteria at the time a user accesses a dynamic folder. The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.